The legal battles and skirmishes in the theater of public opinion over Florida’s contested elections continued Monday.

The quick summary: Republicans maintain that Democrats are trying to steal an election that has already been decided, while Democrats say that they want every vote counted.

As had been expected, the first unofficial election results submitted to the state over the weekend had the U.S. Senate, governor’s and agriculture commission race all within the 0.5 percentage point margin mandating an automatic machine recount of the more than 8 million ballots cast.

Around the state, county election supervisors began the time-consuming task of feeding tens of thousands of paper ballots into high-speed tabulating machines to double-check the count reported to the state on Saturday.

Results are due to the State Division of Elections by 3 p.m. Thursday. Susan Bucher, the Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County – where more than 600,000 votes were cast – has expressed doubts as to whether her office could finish the recounts in time.

President Donald Trump weighed in by Twitter on Monday morning. As he has done in the past, he alleged fraud in the election without offering any evidence.

"The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged," the president tweeted. "An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!"

To be clear, vote counting in Florida elections is never completed on election night. Overseas ballots can be accepted up to 10 days after the election. And counting typically continues for days after polls close as election officials review provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots. But in races where the vote margins aren't razor-thin, that ongoing counting rarely changes the outcome of an election.

The Nelson campaign has consistently said it wants every vote counted.

﻿“This process is about one thing: making sure every legal ballot is counted and protecting the right of every Floridian to participate in our democracy," Nelson said in a statement released following the recount order. "Since Tuesday, the gap has shrunk from roughly 60,000 votes to about 12,500 – the margin has reduced by 78 percent and is now roughly .15 percent. We have every expectation the recount will be full and fair and will continue taking action to ensure every vote is counted without interference or efforts to undermine the democratic process. We believe when every legal ballot is counted we’ll win this election."

Scott asked a Broward County judge to allow law enforcement to impound voting machines and ballots when they're not being used during the Florida recount.

Lawyers for Scott's Senate campaign asked Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter on Monday to give custody of all voting machines and ballots to the Broward Sheriff's Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement whenever they're not being used.

The recount is already secured by police outside and deputies inside, with both parties and campaigns monitoring the entire process. Once calibration tests are completed on the ballot scanning machines, vote-counting will continue around the clock. So it's unclear when any machines or ballots would be "not in use."

Tuter ruled against Scott, but offered up a compromise: Adding more Broward deputies to the contingent of law enforcement officers and others watching over the recount process.

Tuter also said he's seen no evidence of wrongdoing in the vote-counting in Broward and urged all sides to "ramp down the rhetoric."

Nelson called on Scott to recuse himself from “any role” in Florida’s recount process.

Nelson said Scott is “using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process” and his recent actions make clear that he “cannot oversee this process in a fair and impartial way.”

“He’s thrown around words like voter fraud without any proof,” Nelson said. “He’s stood on the steps of the governor’s mansion and tried to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Broward elections chief.

In a separate case pending in federal court in Tallahassee, a judge is weighing whether Florida's method of screening absentee ballots is constitutional.

Election officials in Florida decide to count an absentee ballot largely based on whether the signature on the absentee ballot matches the signature on file with the election office.

Nelson's lawyers argue that signatures change over time and that election officials have no particular expertise in handwriting analysis. They are asking that every ballot rejected because of a signature mismatch be counted as a valid ballot.

Nelson is also seeking to have counted absentee ballots that were postmarked by election day but not received by local election officials until after the polls closed.

State law says that absentee ballots have to be received by 7 p.m. on election day, with the exception of overseas ballots. Those ballots can be accepted up to 10 days after an election as long as they were postmarked by election day. Nelson's lawyers argue that double standard is unconstitutional.

In an unusual move, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sunday publicly criticized Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen for not pursuing an investigation into alleged irregularities in the handling of election ballots in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Bondi’s office released a two-page letter rooted, at least in part, in Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial statement Thursday night that he was asking the FDLE to investigate irregularities.

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Gov. Rick Scott talks to reporters about his allegations of ballots being mishandled in some South Florida counties, Friday, Nov. 9, 2018.
Patrick Riley, patrick.riley@naplesnews.com; 239-263-4825

An FDLE spokeswoman had said Friday that the agency was working with the Florida Department of State “and will investigate any allegations of criminal activity or fraud. We do not have an active investigation at this point."

Bondi wrote in her letter Sunday to Swearingen that she was “deeply troubled” and that his “duty is not limited to investigating allegations made by the secretary of state.” She also said FDLE had pointed to a lack of a written complaint in deciding not to pursue an investigation.

A day after a count every vote rally at a Fort Lauderdale church in Broward County, Gillum was heading to a Baptist church for a “Faith in Democracy” event Monday night in Palm Beach County.

He told an exuberant crowd Sunday that the campaign was over, but there was more to be done.

“I’m simply here to say that for the votes that have been cast, they ought to be counted,” he said. “Every last single one of them.”

Meanwhile, DeSantis, the leader in the race for governor, said he shares the frustration of many Floridians with a few counties that seem unable to meet the vote count schedule laid out in law. He called the rule of law “foundational to our society.”

“As governor, I will work diligently with our legislative leaders to make sure that all Floridians have continued confidence in our election system and that we address the potential deficiencies that have caused this situation in a few counties," DeSantis said in a statement to the USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida. “A crisis of faith in our election system should not be allowed to fester based on the actions of a few supervisors and I will work to right this situation for future elections.”

In Bay County, ground zero for the Hurricane Michael's destruction last month, the county's supervisor of elections said he permitted more than 150 voters to cast ballots by fax or e-mail, though state law does not permit that.

Mark Anderson, elections supervisor in Bay County, a Republican-leaning county, defended his decision and noted that he used the same procedures used for overseas voters, who are allowed to vote by fax or email.

“You did not go through what we went through,” he told the Tampa Bay Times, describing areas that were shut off by law enforcement and people barred from returning to their homes.

Jeb Bush, who was Florida's governor during the infamous 2000 recount that saw his brother George W. Bush win the state — and as a result, the presidency — by 537 votes, said Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes should be removed from office.

In a tweet, Bush wrote, "There is no question that Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes failed to comply with Florida law on multiple counts, undermining Floridians’ confidence in our electoral process. Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts."

Contributing: The Associated Press, Ali Schmitz in Broward County, Ana Ceballos and James Call in Tallahassee.

Florida Governor and Senate candidate Rick Scott says he is asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate elections offices in Palm Beach and Broward counties, questioning whether they were trying to inflate the Democratic vote. (Nov. 9)
AP

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Senator Bill Nelson has called for a recount. Do the vote margins in his race against Rick Scott call for one?
Nate Chute, IndyStar